Page 77 of Phantom Mine

“To think that just last week you had a knife to my neck, ready to slit my throat,” he muses. “Now you’re stitching up my wound. What will next week bring, I wonder?”

“Perhaps digging you an unmarked grave in a forest somewhere so I have a place to hide your body when I’m finished with you?” I comment dryly.

An easy, teasing grin plays along his lips. “Kinky,cara. Consider me an extremely willing participant.” He runs the backs of two fingers softly over my bottom lip, his pupils dilating with desire. “However, if I’m indulging your kinks, then you’re indulging mine back. And I’m going to make you realize that your fantasies really lacked imagination.”

His hushed promise pulls twin waves of heat to my cheeks and my core. The pleased rumble that rolls up his chest tells me my reaction doesn’t go unnoticed by him.

“Why’d you do it?” I ask, eyes fixed on his bleeding arm. My hands shake only slightly as I tug the needle through torn flesh. “Why’d you put yourself in harm’s way for me? You could have been seriously injured. Or worse.”

His fingers drum along the edge of the counter. For long moments, they provide the only sounds in a stretching silence between us.

“I didn’t lie to you the night ofCarnivale,” he replies. “There’s nothing more dangerous to my health than you.”

There’s that very inconvenient, very unwanted pinching in my stomach again.

“You’re not allowed to give up your life for me.”

Matteo hums again but doesn’t say anything else. He’s quiet as I stitch his wound. I’m sure it’s painful to be sown up without anesthetic, but he doesn’t move, doesn’t twitch. He doesn’t even look at what I’m doing.

He keeps his eyes fixed dutifully on me.

I’ve never been watched the way he watches me, like a tracking hawk waiting patiently for an opening to swoop in for the kill.

The silence stretches but it’s far from awkward. It’s companionable even. I reach into the kitchen and grab the tiny pair of scissors.

“Why did you freeze back there?”

My hand stutters and I miss a beat before I recover. Cutting the thread at the end of his stitches, I busy my hands cleaning up the items I used—the antiseptic wipe, the bloody gauze, the used thread and needle, the papers from the bandage I applied on top of the wound, the—

Matteo cups my cheek and turns my face, forcing me to look up at the visceral look of need burning hotly in his eyes. He’s shirtless, his shoulders broad, his legs crossed as he leans against the island, radiating the kind of effortless dominance that would be the envy of any man who saw it.

“I answered your question,” he presses gently. “An answer for an answer.”

I swallow thickly. The me from a month ago would have told him to fuck off. The me today realizes he’s saved my life at least twice, if not more, and deserves something in return. If not the full truth, then at least a small measure of it.

“I have post traumatic stress disorder. Specific triggers related to the traumatizing event will cause panic attacks sometimes. That was… That was the worse one so far. I don’t usually freeze. It’s never happened to me before.”

Matteo’s thumb brushes gently across my cheek in a comforting gesture. “Was the gun the trigger?”

I shake my head. “Sometimes just being atFirenzewill trigger an attack.”

“Being at the club triggers it?” Matteo’s features tighten, as does his hand on my face. His words rip past his lips with urgent fury. “Tell me what happened to you there.”

I try to turn away but his hand tightens on my face, keeping me from being able to do so.

A soft murmur of disapproval escapes his lips before he pulls me against him, my cheek pressed against his bare chest, my ear over his steady heart. Six inches to the left and the bullet would have brought this comforting beat, and his life, to an end.

An unpleasant burn ignites in my chest and roasts my insides painfully slowly at the thought.

“You’re done answering my questions. I get it.” Somehow, Matteo’s voice manages to be both soft on the surface and flinty beneath it. “But you don’t need to run away.”

I pull back. “Do I look like I’m running?”

“Physically? No. But in here?” His other hand skims across my temple when he reaches up to brush the hair delicately from my face. “Yeah, you’re running,cara.”

Matteo leans forward and presses a kiss to my forehead. His mouth lingers, his bottom lip dragging erotically over my skin until it tingles.

He moves lower, kissing one eyelid.

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